by Renee After | May 2020
I am angry. I am anguished. I am heartbroken. I am hallowed out.I am sick and tired of police needlessly killing black and brown people. Some police still see black men as threats, to brutalize, to contain, to remand. They have stereotyped our grandfathers, fathers, husbands, sons, and nephews, as monsters, subject to violence and death. They have killed our grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters, and nieces. Every time I watch the video of George Floyd’s death, my heart weeps. Who in their right mind, kneels on another human’s neck and ignores desperate pleas of “I Can’t Breathe”? Where is the humanity of these white police officers? Policing should not be predicated on brutal force and a complete disdain for black life. White supremacy has no place in the criminal justice system, in government, in the White House, in the United States. Black lives matter every second, every minute, every hour, every day. A memoriam list of those unarmed black and brown people killed by the police, sheriff Deputies, and security guards.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [Policing] [Police Shootings] [History] [Systemic Racism] [-ing While Black] [Justice System]
by Fakiha Baig | June 2021
A Cree woman had just given birth to her sixth child in Saskatoon, when she was presented with a consent form for her sterilization. “She tried to wheel herself away from the operating room, but the doctor wheeled her right back in the direction of the same operating room,” says a new government report, which details the woman’s sterilization in 2001. “When she was in the operating room, she kept asking the doctor if she was done yet. Finally, he said, ‘Yes. Cut, tied and burnt. There, nothing is getting through that.”’
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [History] [Health Disparities] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Systemic Racism]
by Nick Martin | June 2021
Deb Haaland is pushing for a federal reckoning with what the U.S. did to Native Americans. But she cannot be alone in her mission.
On Tuesday, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland revealed at the National Congress of American Indians’ annual midyear conference that the federal government, led by her department, will “undertake an investigation of the loss of human life and the lasting consequences” of federal Indian boarding schools. The announcement comes on the heels of a continent-shaking discovery made three weeks ago by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, which found the remains of 215 Indigenous children buried in a mass grave outside of Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, Canada. That horrific announcement was followed by another on Wednesday evening, when Cowessess First Nation revealed that it had discovered 751 unmarked graves at Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [Politics] [Systemic Racism] [Accountability] [History] [Silencing POC] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [Economics] [Justice System]
by Cecily Hilleary | June 2021
In late October 1912, 15-year-old Agnes White, left her home on the St. Regis Mohawk reservation in northern New York to begin five years of vocational training at the Carlisle Industrial Indian School in Pennsylvania. She would never see home again. Records show White spent only a year in the classroom. The following May, she was farmed out on the first of four work details as a servant in white households. That fall, a Philadelphia surgeon operated on her eyelid to correct a malformation caused by trachoma, a highly contagious eye infection that was epidemic throughout the boarding school system and a major public health concern.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Indigenous] [History] [Systemic Racism] [Health Disparities] [Slavery] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Privilege] [White Blindness] [Politics]
By Renee Ater | May 2020
I am angry. I am anguished. I am heartbroken. I am hallowed out.I am sick and tired of police needlessly killing black and brown people. Some police still see black men as threats, to brutalize, to contain, to remand. They have stereotyped our grandfathers, fathers, husbands, sons, and nephews, as monsters, subject to violence and death. They have killed our grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters, and nieces. Every time I watch the video of George Floyd’s death, my heart weeps. Who in their right mind, kneels on another human’s neck and ignores desperate pleas of “I Can’t Breathe”? Where is the humanity of these white police officers? Policing should not be predicated on brutal force and a complete disdain for black life. White supremacy has no place in the criminal justice system, in government, in the White House, in the United States. Black lives matter every second, every minute, every hour, every day. A list of names.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Black Lives Matter] [-ing While Black] [Systemic Racism] [White Culture] [White Supremacy] [Policing] [Police Shootings]
by Cheryl W. Thompson | January 2021
Ronell Foster was riding his bicycle through the hushed streets of Vallejo, Calif., one evening when a police officer noticed that the bike had no lights and that he was weaving in and out of traffic.
The officer, Ryan McMahon, went after Foster with lights flashing, siren blaring and the car’s spotlight pointed directly at him. Foster stopped. The pair exchanged words before Foster, who was on community supervision for a car theft conviction a month earlier, fled, eventually ditching the bicycle. McMahon caught up with Foster and jumped on top of him. The two struggled. McMahon, a rookie on the force, used a Taser on the father of two and struck him several times with his department-issued flashlight. Gunfire erupted — seven shots total. When it was over, Foster, 33, lay dying in the bushes in a darkened courtyard near an apartment complex.
TAGS: [Racial Terrorism] [2020’s] [Systemic Racism] [Black Lives Matter] [Policing] [Police Shootings] [-ing While Black] [Justice System] [White Supremacy] [White Culture] [White Defensiveness] [White Privilege] [Black Lives Matter] [Accountability]
